"While we're at it, why not bring back the filthy white wine called Hirondelle which teenagers used in fruit cups at parties in the late 1960s? It had powerful notes of sodium metabisulphate with a lingering suggestion of witch hazel. There was an equally horrible red called Corrida used for the same purpose.

Does anyone remember a mercifully short-lived beverage produced by Watneys called Biarritz? It achieved the brief distinction of being mentioned in a parody of 'I'm the Urban Spaceman' : 'I'm the Watneys W***er'.

Valmai (Lewes)"

Begod, Valmai, it could have been me writing that! Remember all those ads in the papers, featuring some highly-improbable sketches such as pigs flying, which had at the bottom: "It's as unlikely as a duff bottle of Hirondelle?" I was incredibly poorly the night before my wedding in 1976 with the most horrendous cold in the head, but I managed to imbibe a whole litre bottle of sweet white Hirondelle that evening. Somewhere there's a long-lost photo of me wearing nothing above the waist except for my wedding tie and I'm swigging the Hirondelle straight from the bloody bottle. Corrida was the cheapest red you could get in those days. I remember that drinking it just made you feel very miserable (you didn't want to but you had to if you know what I mean), and your gut wasn't right for days afterwards and it seemed to give you a chesty cough to boot. There was this Corrida night in a student flat in Lewisham...arrgh...
And Bierritz (I think that was the spelling) - "cool, long and deceptively strong" - was a frequent resort in those pubs that didn't have decent ale. It was oddly drinkable yet at the same time quite disgusting. I'm ashamed to think that I once used to actually drink the stuff...